PS: It's More Than An At-Home Manicure

Ways to make those amazing tools of yours feel and look beautiful and pampered.

FIRST, AN ANNOUNCEMENT:

This is my very first post in my new weekly topic:
PS, short for Pretty Smart.

In this series, I’ll share some of my insider beauty and wellness tips from wanting to look and feel my best in simple, budget-friendly ways. I’ll also discuss why it matters on more than just an outside, superficial level and how it can change your life.

My goal is to help share some of my wisdom through both practical tips, and the insights I’ve picked up from finally telling myself I deserve it, and treating myself with the love and care I always craved.

Here we go!

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I spend a lot of time thinking about my hands…

Which maybe isn’t too surprising. I’m a writer; my hands are my tools.

I also spent much of my childhood obsessed with the way elegant, beautiful women used their hands. Delicately, sweepingly, as if casting spells and leaving little fairy dust on things they touched. I loved their long nails, and soft way of moving, touching, floating through the world.

Our hands are but one vehicle we express ourselves and experience the world.

It is no small or superficial matter to celebrate them with care, and decorate them with love.

Before I finally did some healing work on codependency, I was a waitress for many years in New York and Los Angeles. In this role, other people think about your hands alot, too. It took a few years before I allowed myself to spend my own money on bi-monthly manicures. Doing so felt selfish and foolish, and I always opted to sacrifice my own pampering for the sake of others. I lived with a partner at the time, and I often used what money I would have, could have spent on manicures to improve our home, help us travel, etc. Worthwhile causes…but not at the expense of my own joy. How strange to look back and realize the true depth to which I held myself back, and put myself last.

Today, though, as a full-time writer I don’t get regular manicures. Mostly because I often find them incredibly damaging to my natural nails. I’ve found ways to work around this, though, by doing my own manicures at home.

Here’s why it’s so much more than just a manicure:

It’s an act of self worth.

A signal to myself every time I look at my hands that I value myself, and my time, for the time I spent on them.

It makes me feel polished, put-together, and beautiful.

I truly move differently with a good manicure. Long nails nearly require more delicacy of gesture and lifestyle practicalities. I love that feeling, and watching it extend far past my hands, arms, and into my heart, mind, body.